33 people are killed after landslides in Colombia as the Israeli army advances in the southern Gaza Strip

The soldier with the assault rifle over his shoulder holds a Skylark reconnaissance drone in his hands. He hooks it to a long, elastic rope, which he then tightens by taking twenty steps backwards. Meanwhile, his colleague, also in an olive green uniform, talks into the radio.

Suddenly the electric motor starts to hum softly and the soldier throws the two-meter-long plane into the air. The tight rope catapults the drone into the air. She is then pulled into the air by the propeller. We are about seven miles from Khan Yunis, a Hamas stronghold in the southern Gaza Strip.

Gun noise and air strikes

The action is watched by a female soldier with long blond hair. A striking number of women serve in Israeli drone units. Often the «Vlaklarik» (Vlaklarik in German) is used to find targets for artillery and correct their fire.

A larger unit of self-propelled M109 howitzers has even dug in nearby. We approach the battery through sparse forest on a hill as an attack helicopter circles overhead. The self-propelled howitzers are clearly visible, each protected by an earthen wall.

Since Khan Yunis is close by, the pipes are aligned flat. They rise just above the earthworks and fire their shells over the hill where we watch the spectacle. As the guns roar, an Israeli farmer quietly plants seedlings with a machine in a field right next to the artillery position.

It is apparently the preparatory fire for a larger attack. The Israelis fired an estimated fifty shells across the border into Gaza. Shortly after launch, a dull impact is heard. At Khan Yunis, smoke rises and obscures the view. Then the staccato sound of automatic cannons sounds. Several fighter jets and the lone attack helicopter also participate in the fighting. A Black Hawk helicopter approaches at low altitude, possibly to evacuate the wounded.

Varying degrees of destruction

Three months after the Hamas massacre, the Israeli army has reduced its presence in the northern third of the Gaza Strip. The area is now considered largely ‘cleared’, even though individual Palestinian groups claim to still carry out attacks there. According to the military, about 8,000 terrorists have been killed so far, while the rest have retreated further south.

Hamas claims that more than 23,000 civilian deaths have now occurred, but the information from a terrorist organization that, among other things, kidnaps or brutally murders children cannot really be trusted.

The extent of the destruction caused by Israeli attacks varies. From the border you can make out completely bombed neighborhoods in Gaza with binoculars, but there are also high-rise buildings that, at least from a distance, still look somewhat intact.

The observation that gruesome destruction is taking place next to neighborhoods where many houses still stand is confirmed by videos from the war zone. When Israeli tanks and infantry stormed the extravagant holiday home – complete with swimming pool – of Hamas cadre Marwan Issa, there were hardly any traces of war visible in the images.

But that doesn’t change the fact that hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians in the south of the Gaza Strip are vegetating miserably in a ‘humanitarian zone’. If you look with binoculars towards Rafah in the far south, at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, neither people nor destroyed buildings can be seen.

Rafah on the Egyptian border is not yet the focus of the Israeli offensive. When you look at Egypt, you see the semi-trailers loaded with humanitarian aid for those in need, waiting right behind the border fence to continue their journey to Rafah.

Where are the hostages?

However, there are also displaced people on the Israeli side, even if they are not hungry. One of those who lost their home was software developer Shmuel Moha. Before the Hamas massacre, he lived in Kibbutz Nirim, just two kilometers from the Gaza border.

“There were three waves of attacks that wiped out our community,” he says at his workplace in Sderot, a town almost 20 miles away. “First came Hamas special forces, then armed civilians from Gaza who also killed, and finally civilians who wanted to loot.”

Shmuel was very lucky: he hid in the bomb shelter of his house with his wife and son, who were only two months old at the time. However, this could not be completed. The thirty-year-old was therefore only able to push the door handle up when a terrorist tried to break into the bunker. Using an app on his phone, Shmuel opened the shutters of the house, hoping to scare the terrorists. The trick worked and the killers found other victims.

Kibbutzim like Nirim are home to people who tend to vote left. Many of them could imagine a two-state solution before October 7.

“But that has changed,” says Shmuel, “we no longer have confidence in the Palestinians. We will no longer have guest workers from Gaza or the West Bank. Some of them spied on us before the massacre. And we can’t forget the hostages,” the computer scientist continues, pointing to a dark computer screen in his office. «This is the workplace of Nadav Popplewell, one of my friends from Nirim. He is 51 years old and has diabetes. He and his mother were kidnapped from the kibbutz and held in a Hamas tunnel.”

The 79-year-old mother has now been released by the terrorist organization, but Nadav remained hostage along with more than 130 other fellow sufferers. “Please consider his fate when you write your article,” Shmuel says as he takes his leave. (aargauerzeitung.ch)